


memories not yours

by ifonlynotnever



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, New York Rangers, Psychometry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifonlynotnever/pseuds/ifonlynotnever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marc takes care never to touch anyone else's gear with his bare hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	memories not yours

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt from [camshaft22](camshaft22.tumblr.com): Marc Staal: ESP abilities.

Marc takes care never to touch anyone else's gear with his bare hands.

It's difficult to avoid sometimes, especially in a locker room on the road, when people's stuff gets mixed up despite the trainers' best efforts; but he tries his hardest to only ever handle his own things.

Some of the guys have noticed, of course, especially the ones who've been around the longest, the guys with whom he's spent almost his entire career. No one ever mentions it, though, and he's pretty sure most of them have put it down to another ridiculous hockey superstition.

(They ask about superstitions in a fan forum, once. He can see Boyler gearing up to poke fun at him after Marc outs G as the single most superstitious guy in the room and doesn't mention his own little quirk; but on his other side, Hank takes over, cuts in about why they're necessary. And Marc doesn't know if Hank actually _knows_ or not, but he appreciates the gesture. He says thank you in his own teasing way, and he knows Hank gets it by his smile.)

—-

Cally, he thinks, might know, though he's not sure how. Marc's never slipped up once around him, never so much as brushed a finger against his sock tape, never taken from an object a memory that was Cally's. But somehow Cally knows, and he never asks Marc to pass him his glove even if he's the closest one to it, never says a word.

(The knowing, though, is there in his eyes.)

(And then Cally's gone, and Marc is alone with his secret.)

—-

It's not just hockey gear, of course. It's anything with enough emotional significance attached to it. Watches, toys, articles of clothing. Anything. But Marc is a hockey player surrounded by other people's hockey gear, and just about everything is infused with ritual, with memory, with emotion.

(He gives G's equipment an especially wide berth. He's fairly sure the level of superstition G treats his stuff with would fry his brain.)

—-

When he's a kid, Eric and Jordy try to nag him into finding out where the Christmas presents are hidden.

"C'mon!" Eric says, thrusting one of Mom's sweaters in his face. "She was wearing this when Dad made us all go shopping with him. Pretty sure that's when she hid 'em. Touch it."

Marc just gives him his best unimpressed look - the one he's been practicing for _ages_. "You really think she wouldn't think of that? I bet you she changed before she did it. I bet that after last year, she made sure she wasn't even thinking about anything like Christmas when she did it."

"Just _try_ ," Jordy whines, in that voice that means he's close to a tantrum.

So Marc huffs, but he does it. He takes the sweater and closes his eyes.

"Nothing," he says after a moment, which isn't really true, but neither of his brothers will care that the sweater was a gift from Dad the year before Eric was born. They won't care that Mom loves the sweater, that she enjoys the texture, that she knows Dad loves seeing her in it, that the memories are soft and fuzzy and warm inside Marc's head. That won't matter to them.

Eric makes a disgusted noise and stomps off, Jordy trailing after him.

(Marc and Jared find the presents later on that day. They do it the hard way, too, and they don't say a word to Eric and Jordy.)

—-

It's an accident.

They lose it all - they lose game five, they lose the Cup, they lose... _everything_. They give it all they have and they still come up short, and Marc - Marc's just... preoccupied. He’s not paying attention, ripping off his gloves and his helmet, and his knuckles just barely graze the hem of Hank's jersey.

It _levels_ him. Takes everything he has not to stumble, not to fall, not to crash into the trainer who's reaching out to take his gloves.

He'd thought the raw, hollow heartbreak - the emotion he knows they all felt on the ice, each and every one of them - was bad enough. But it's nothing compared to what hits Marc then. It's nothing.

(The guilt is worse.)

—-

He dreams, and he dreams of the Cup. Eric and Jordy - they've both held it, lifted it above their heads, brought it home for him to look at and never touch.

"You're next," they tell him. "You are. You'll get it."

He gets so close, and that only fuels the desire. He wants it. He wants to touch it.

He will.

(He can't even imagine what it'll be like, touching something with that much history, that much emotion attached to it, but he thinks it might destroy him.)

(He can't wait.)


End file.
